Friday, December 17, 2010

Is There an App for Baby Dialing?

Before I got my fancy new smart phone, I made sure that it was capable of locking. Like bomb-proof locking so that only I could use it. Why? Because of my youngest child, whom you may also know as Mini-mini-me or the little cupcake baked by the devil. At 18 months, she figured out how to unlock my old phone and had no end of fun dialing random numbers.

I became somewhat infamous among those unlucky enough to have their numbers saved in my phone for baby dialing. Not butt dialing. BABY DIALING. She would sneak into my purse or my pocket and take my phone and push buttons and open and close it until she got it to call someone. Then something happened that made me finally give up and just upgrade my phone for a new one that the baby could not use to humiliate me.

It was late on a Friday night –after 10:30pm- and I thought all the kids were asleep. I was in the bathroom when I heard a familiar beeping coming from my phone. My phone that was supposed to be turned off and charging in the kitchen.

“Honey? Are you using my phone?”

Silence.

“Seriously – Cap’n – are you using my phone?”

Silence.

“Can you answer me please?”

The bathroom door SLAMS open and there stands Mini-mini-me in her jammies. Holding my phone. A struggle ensued which was neither effective nor dignified as I was seated on the throne at the time. My husband finally came to see what all the commotion was about and took the phone from her. He handed it back to me as I walked out of the bathroom.

“Just so you know, Lydia, when I got the phone from her – she had called someone.”

Dread filled my heart. I looked at my phone. OH DEAR MAUDE.

The baby had managed to dial the father of one of the girls in my Girl Scout troop. On his personal cell phone (which I only had as an emergency contact from a recent hike with the girls). At 10:30 on a Friday night. What the hell was he going to think? WHAT THE HELL WAS HIS WIFE GOING TO THINK?

I found out. I saw the couple in question a few days later and went over to apol

ogize. I didn’t even get a word out when the husband started snickering at me and walked away. I looked at his wife and started to explain myself. She put up her hand and said: “Stop. Please don’t worry about it. Normally I would feel pretty weird about a woman calling my husband’s cell phone so late – but I heard the voicemail so it’s completely fine.”

Voicemail?

“Ummm… What did the voicemail say? Because I actually didn’t call you. The baby did.”

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

“Oh I know. The message went something like this: "Mini mini me! Is that my phone? GIVE MOMMY THE PHONE THIS MINUTE! No! Please baby! MOMMY IS ON THE POTTY! Give me the phone! No – don’t touch that! Gahhhhhhhh! No touching that - GIVE MOMMY THE PHONE – Come back here!" Then flushing, then the sound of what I can only assume was you washing your hands and then your husband’s voice saying Gotcha! And then the phone went off.”

And with that, I add yet another story to the vast internet archives that are me making an ass of myself in public.